Don’t Have a Facelift, Have a Life Lift Instead

Though I have written twenty books in the personal-growth genre, I don’t generally read them. I read fiction. Lots of it. About a book a week.

However, as a self-help author, I always appreciate the positive messages found in my favorite fiction. When reading fiction, you read more with your heart, not your head. With your defenses down, it is easier for the truths to slip in.

Meet Maddie Please

It is with this in mind, I am pleased to share a new favorite author with you: Maddie Please—who writes “joyous tales of older women.”

Because I read as many books as I do, and I read on my Kindle Paperwhite (I can read it in the sunshine, so it is good around the pool or at the beach), I am a Kindle Unlimited Member (my book Wired That Way is available free for Kindle Unlimited members). As such, I like to take advantage of the “free” books available with my membership. Within this category, there are many British authors whose books are part of the offerings. Maddie Please is one of these authors.

I first read Sisters Behaving Badly—which features two estranged sister brought back together by an inheritance from an old auntie and takes place in France. I enjoyed it so much, as soon as I finished it, I promptly downloaded The Old Ducks Club. It takes place in Greece. The lead character is Sophia—a 59 year-old woman from Oxford who has just extricated herself from an “unwise relationship” with her married boss. She escapes to Greece for a month in a vacation rental. Next door, in another vacation rental, are three other senior women from the UK: Juliette, Anita, and Kim—previously unknown to Sophia. Needless to say they become friends and their lives all change as a result. The unfolding changes are the story.

The following passage is what prompted me to write this review. (Note verbiage, spellings and punctuations are typical of British publishing.)

The Old Ducks Club

By the time I arrived in their garden she was already in the hot tub, holding a tumbler of red wine. She was wearing an orange zebra print swimming costume and her blonde hair was pinned up on top of her head with a jazzy red clip. I felt quite dull in comparison.

‘How do you manage it Juliette?’ I asked as I clambered into the warm water.

‘Grab a tumbler. Manage what?’ she said.

‘Always being so – so up. You’re positive and colourful and optimistic all the time. You’re full of…’

‘Don’t say it,’ Juliette cackled. ‘I know what I’m full of. And I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m not actually that person at all. I used to be probably the shyest person you’d ever meet, but life’s too short isn’t it? To let yourself be dragged down. And I can tell you have been in the past.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said, holding out my tumbler for her to fill.

‘Don’t argue, I’ve been there,’ Juliette said, shaking her head, ‘been messed around, lied to, disappointed so many times. And then one day – just after I realised what a rat I’d married, how my marriage had failed, how I had hardly any self-confidence and that I was about to lose my home – I saw a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor, and a quote, “Pour yourself a drink, put on your lipstick and pull yourself together”. And I thought, nice one Liz. That’ll do for me. So that’s what I did. First, I started using lipstick. And then I had my first facelift. See? I still don’t look like Liz Taylor because she was absolutely glorious wasn’t she? But it did iron things out a bit. You know, the droopy eyelids.’

‘I’m not having a facelift,’ I said, ‘not after what you said about it being painful.’

‘Then don’t have a facelift, have a life lift instead, have a brain lift, have a good go at life lift. That’s my advice. It might all end in disaster but at least you will have tried.’

‘Yes,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘I think I will.’

She gestured at my black tankini. ‘And start buying colourful things, it’ll make you feel better. At our age, you get ignored a lot.’

‘Well that’s true.’

‘People can’t ignore you if you’re wearing yellow or shocking pink or – I don’t know – peacock feathers.’

‘They just think you’re crazy,’ I said.

‘Yes, but then they do actually see you and some of them remember you. I realised I spent my youth moaning because I didn’t have hair like Farrah Fawcett, I wasn’t cool like Cindy Crawford. But looking back at old photos, I was okay. Quite okay actually. And then it struck me, when I’m eighty-five I want to look back at the way I was when I was sixty-five and think, hey I wasn’t bad, I did my best. I didn’t give up.’ Juliette turned and shouted. ‘Come on you two, we’re already halfway down our first glass and we’re talking serious stuff here.’ She turned back to me. ‘And remember, someone is out there holding their breath and waiting for you to fail. Make sure they suffocate, that’s what I say.’ 

Those of you who know me can quickly understand why this caught my attention. I love color. I have embraced this overall view of life: a life-lift.

Best-Life Depicted

Later in the book is the following. This passage reflected the overall view of The Best-Life Project: “I had my health and strength, I was financially comfortable, I still had chances. Opportunities, if I was brave enough to take them.”

I hadn’t travelled much at all during my last years with Peter. My husband had come to hate any break in his routine; he hadn’t even renewed his passport. And then, of course, he had been ill.

What things did I want to do with the rest of my life, I wondered? Not so long ago I would have thought that I had achieved everything I was capable of, that I was slowly going to fade into old age and unimportance. But I didn’t have to accept it had to happen, that was the thing. I had my health and strength, I was financially comfortable, I still had chances. Opportunities, if I was brave enough to take them.

I could still learn new skills, find new friends, grab everything the world had to offer me. I was determined I wasn’t going to just give up and spend the rest of my life thinking about what I could have done.

No choice, really, which was the most attractive option.

‘Well,’ Theo said, as he turned back to me, ‘have you thought of something you want to do?’

‘Yes, I have. I want to see the Grand Canyon, I want to walk the pilgrim way to Santiago de Compostela with a cockle shell in my hat, I want to see the Statue of Liberty. I want to find out if the Rockies are as impressive as people say they are. I want to see the Norwegian fjords, and the sun rise over the pyramids.’

I stopped, almost breathless, as I saw the world open up in front of me.

I hope these snippets pique your interest in reading works by Maddie Please—and, in this style of fiction.

I enjoyed The Old Duck’s Club so much; I sought out a recipe that sounded similar to the Greek Lemon Chicken and Potatoes Sophia made. I just wish the recipe had been included in the back of the book. It sounded so wonderful.

Unwise Relationship

One of the other features I found interesting in The Old Duck’s Club, is Sophia’s “unwise relationship.” Extramarital affairs are often a part of the storyline in novels about older women starting over—but, they are usually from the viewpoint of the wife, not the other woman. Here, Sophia realizes her error, accepts her loneliness following her husband’s death and her resulting role in what she refers to as her “unwise relationship.”

Keep Living

Maddie Please will make you excited about being a woman of a certain age, an Old Duck. Someone who can still “learn new skills, find new friends, grab everything the world has to offer.”

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Marita has spent the majority of her adult life working with women—helping them improve relationships, achieve their speaking and writing dreams, and being the best version of themselves they can possibly be. The author of 20 books, this Living Our Best Life Project is her newest effort—through which she hopes to challenge women to be fulfilled where they are.